


Caught in the Grey

by Saral_Hylor



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Comic Book Science, Developing Relationship, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Nightmares, POV First Person, PTSD, Songfic, The Grey - Icon for Hire, Tony Stark Has A Heart, failure to adjust, fragmented sentences, time travel is possible
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-05
Updated: 2013-05-05
Packaged: 2017-12-10 12:55:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/786263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saral_Hylor/pseuds/Saral_Hylor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"It’s been six months that I’ve been stuck in this place that is both hauntingly familiar and absurdly different. There are places I know, that I used to know, that have changed or simply disappeared. A lot can happen in seventy years, and at the same time nothing has changed."</i>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Steve can't adjust. Tony helps the only way he knows how. He builds something.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Caught in the Grey

**Author's Note:**

  * For [quandong_crumble](https://archiveofourown.org/users/quandong_crumble/gifts).



> This is my first real attempt at a songfic, where I've actually used reproduced lyrics (I do not own!) so I hope it works out okay. The song is The Grey by Icon for Hire. Awesome band, it's not even their best song, but it fit so well. Everyone should look them up, if even only for the sake of this story. 
> 
> Beta'ed by the ever brilliant quandong_crumble. One day she'll eventually have stories of her own up here, and then I can pester people to go read them because they'll be far better than any of mine.

_I am standing on the edge of returning or just running away_   
_I am letting myself look the other way_   
_And the hardest part in all of this is I don't think I know my way back home_   
_Is it worth the journey or do I let my heart settle here_

 

It’s been six months that I’ve been stuck in this place that is both hauntingly familiar and absurdly different. There are places I know, that I used to know, that have changed or simply disappeared. A lot can happen in seventy years, and at the same time nothing has changed.

We still fight, still believe that we have the right to. I’ve been tasked with protecting a world that I’m not even sure deserves it anymore. All the mistakes of the past and it seems we, the human race, are still incapable of learning.

The largest part of me wants to go back, to find a way to travel back in time, so I can live my life as it was meant to be. To get back in time to have that dance with Peggy.  For a while I thought it would have been nice to see the end of the war, to have celebrated it with Peggy and the Commandos; but then I learnt how we won and I’m almost ashamed to be a part of this once great nation.

Then there is a part of me, a small part, that wants to stay. That part is tied to you. You don’t know it, but you are also both achingly familiar and wonderfully different at the same time. Not that I can ever tell you; you hate being compared to Howard, and I don’t wish to compare the two of you. The Howard I knew is not the same man that you knew, and I wish that was different. But I wasn’t there and I can’t change the past.

I wish I could. Given the chance, if it was possible, I think I’d go back. I don’t belong here, it is easy to see that. The man out of time, that is all I am now. A soldier whose war ended without him. There are wars going on now, but they are not mine. And until the Avengers are called to assembly again, there is nothing for me to do.

In the meantime, I spend more time than I should with you. It is easy, sitting in your workshop while you bustle around. You forget I’m there more often than not, but it’s nice. Watching you work, being surrounded by all the technology and inventions that are too advanced for the rest of the world, it’s just like being back in Howard’s workshop. Yours is far brighter and more brilliant, but in essence it is the same. You are also far brighter and more brilliant, but I haven’t told you that. I don’t know how.

It is you, more so than my responsibility to the Avengers, that really stops me from wanting to leave. It’s tempting to let you introduce me to this new world and to help me settle in. I just don’t know how to ask.

  
_How cold have I become_   
_I didn't want to_   
_Lose you by what I'd done_   
_Caught in the grey_

 

I wake up feeling like I’m trapped under the ice again. Everything is cold, no matter how many blankets I put on the bed, I always wake up cold.

This world, despite being full of vivid colours and flashing lights and so much electric and manmade warmth, still feels cold and is dull, like everything is in grey scale. Everyone remembers the Great Depression era as though it was all in sepia tone, but my memories of it are far more alive than the present seems.

I’m caught in this world that, to me, appears to be a grey haze.  There are very few colours in my spectrum anymore, at first I thought something had gone wrong in the ice, but now I realise I simply don’t want to process this strange world. It surprised me that the first colours I noticed were red, gold and a blue that seemed to be more a living thing than a colour.

I think that was why I lashed out at you. I was scared, alone and trapped and you were there, larger than life and so familiar it hurt. Like a wounded animal, I attacked the person trying to help me. You made it so easy, too.

It wasn’t until I almost lost you, that I ordered the portal to be closed, that I realised you were right. We aren’t soldiers. It wasn’t a war that we were used to. It wasn’t government against government using soldiers as pawns. It was a an alien race against us; I encountered things I never thought possible, gods, aliens, flying ships, and a man in a suit that could fly, who despite the image he painted of himself, lay down on the wire for everyone else. The wire you insisted you’d cut before you ever sacrificed yourself for anyone.

I almost lost you, and if I had it would have been my fault. For a moment, I had wanted to put the life of one man, your life, over the entire human race. You weren’t one of my soldiers, you still aren’t. You are more than that.

  
_I don't wanna look you in the eyes, you might call my away_   
_I don't wanna give you the chance to make me stay_   
_And the hardest part in all of this is_   
_I know my way back, I don't want to go_   
_And let you see all that has become of me_

 

It’s as if you know, like you can just tell, that I need you. I’m struggling against the ice, trying to fight away the cold, and you save me.

Your voice comes through the communicator that I left on my bedside table overnight. You tell me to come down to the workshop, that you have something to show me. It is early in the morning, and I know, without asking, that you haven’t slept yet.

I’m still too cold. I don’t normally interact with anyone until I’ve broken through the ice that encases me every time I sleep. I want to go down to the gym and get my blood pumping first, but your voice draws me down to your workshop. I don’t want you to see me like this, but I go anyway. I’m sure that you’ll see my weakness all too easily, and take advantage of it in some way.

That small fraction of me tells me that you are not that cruel. That tiny piece of me longs for you to see what is wrong with me and find a way to patch me up, give me an upgrade, like you do with every other thing you find that is broken.

You do not comment on the way my teeth chatter, or the way I huddle inside my jacket, you just stand closer to me than normal and share your warmth. Of course you, of all people, understand the nightmares, loss and the overwhelming need to pretend that we’re coping just fine. It was all in your file, I know because I read it. I know you read mine too.

You grin at me as you take hold of my wrist, strapping some sort of device around it. I don’t notice what it is, I’m too busy seeing the way your smile doesn’t reach your eyes. Your eyes have dark circles underneath them, and I wonder how long it’s been since you slept; your eyes are full of pain and loss, but you look resigned to it, as though you already know what is going to happen.

I can’t look at that pain for long, I don’t know how to make it go away, this isn’t something that I can fix by fighting or giving orders.

Your hands linger on my wrist, drawing my gaze down to the device. There is a screen on it, and you start running your fingers over it, a date appears and you don’t even have to explain what you’ve made. I know what it is, though I never dreamed that it was possible.

You’re giving me a way home, a chance to go back and find a different way around what happened, or simply to step back into my old life right after the plane hit the ice.

I can’t bring myself to look at you again. I know what the pain in your eyes is from now. You don’t want me to leave. Of course you won’t say it, but you don’t want me to go, and you’re so sure that I will. If I look, I’ll see everything you won’t say; I’ll see you asking me not to leave you.

I have a chance to go back, it is right there in front of me, and I do not doubt, even for a moment, that it will work. You made it, so of course it will work. But it isn’t doubt of the devices integrity that gives me pause.

It’s simply, I don’t know if I want to go.

  
_I should've known, I should've known_   
_I didn't have a chance_

 

You’re explaining how it’ll work, what will most likely happen, but I’m not listening, I don’t want to hear it. Your voice is telling me to go, but the way your fingers curl around my wrist is begging me to stay.

All I can focus on is the arc reactor in your chest, that living blue glow that I can see through the threadbare old shirt you’re wearing. I reach towards it, because it is a symbol of everything you are, like my shield is a symbol of me.

I reach towards you, because it has always been you; you’ve always been there for me. You were there with a sharp retort when I needed someone to argue with. You were there at my apartment with pizza, or shawarma, or Chinese and movies when I needed company. You were there with an invitation to live in the tower when I needed a home. You were there with an exasperated sigh and friendly teasing when I needed help with my phone.

You are here with your body heat when I need warming up.

You are here with this device when you think I want to go home.

It has always been you. I should have known I never stood a chance. Not even a life time of being told it was wrong can stop me from reaching out and pulling you closer. I hug you, and I can tell from the friendly pat on the back that you think I’m merely trying to say thank you.

I dissuade that notion in a way I’m sure you’ll understand. I kiss you.

For a heart stopping moment you don’t respond and I think I’ve made a mistake, but then you’re clinging to me and pushing back against me. I can feel the cold seeping away.

  
_How cold have I become_   
_I didn't want to_   
_Lose you by what I'd done_   
_Caught in the grey_   
_It burns for a moment but_   
_But then it numbs you_   
_Takes you and leaves you just_   
_Caught in the grey_

 

I’m scared that this won’t last, but so far you’ve stayed by my side. It has been all of a month. I think you’re just as scared that I’ll change my mind and leave, but you never say anything.

Things are changing and I think it’s for the better. I am not the soldier America needs anymore. I am not the hero you idolised as a child. I’m still a man out of time. I still don’t fit into this frighteningly fantastic world. I don’t think I ever will. Too much has changed and I don’t like what the world has become.

But I do not think I’d like my old world anymore either. You are here in the now, and more than anything, I need you.

I still wake up struggling against the ice, but you’re always there, within reach. You let me wrap myself around you and share your warmth. You are there to take my hand when I wake reaching for Bucky, trying to save him.

The world is still in grey scale, but for you. I notice more colours now; the brown of your eyes; the redness of your lips after we kiss. But it is still the blue of the arc reactor that is the most vibrant; it is that colour that reminds me that I want to be here. You once told me that it is keeping you alive. I haven’t told you yet, but I think it is keeping me alive too.  _  
_

  
_In your deepest pain_  
 _In your weakest hour_  
 _In your darkest night_  
 _You are lovely_  
 

I wake, not to the ice and bone deep cold, but to you gasping for air, thrashing about on the other side of the bed. This is not the first time, and not likely to be the last. I reach for you, hand finding yours and you slowly relax, your breathing evens out.

I hold you as you sleep, tucking you against my chest, wrapping my arms around you. This is what I can do for you. It seems so little in comparison to all you’ve done for me. I can hold you and hope that it is enough. I don’t know how to take to nightmares away, or how to stop the panic that grips you so tightly. I try to find a way, but so far there is little I can do.

We are both broken; there are no tools to fix us, nor an upgrade to repair our problems. There is only time, and that may or may not be enough to mend us.

But you are still more than I ever hoped for, and I love you, faults and all.

_  
I am standing on the edge of returning or just running away_

 

I found it completely by accident. I think you’d even forgotten about it, didn’t even remember bringing it to New York. But somehow it ended up in Stark Tower, and I found it.

The glass casing has gone, the base is chipped and dented and the stand empty, but the plaque still proclaims that this holds proof you have a heart.

You scoff at it, when I show you, but you tell me the story behind it, and how it got damaged. I can see the sweetness that Pepper intended it to be, even if you only laugh at it now. So, when you tell me to throw it away, I don’t.

I fix it instead.

But in place of the original arc reactor, I put the time travel device in there, the screen still showing the date and time you thought I wanted to be in. I put it there, because it is better proof that you have a heart. It is proof you cared when you didn’t have to.

And I seal in it glass, because even though I’m still the man out of time, even though I don’t think I’ll ever truly belong in this time, I don’t want to leave.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is also for my sister, since she said I needed to write more stuff with happy endings. Hope it lives up to your expectations!


End file.
